Oklahoma Candidates’ Campaign Spending Triples From 2021 To 2022, Ethics Report Shows

A new report from the Oklahoma Ethics Commission showed that candidates tripled their campaign spending this year.

This year, candidates spent $34.5 million in a state Republicans have controlled since 2004. 

News 9 political analyst Scott Mitchell said he expected this level of spending. As the pressure to win increases, so does campaign spending.   

Mitchell said this raises the question of whether a state like Oklahoma needs to change the game. 

“When you have oversteps and when you start to see numbers like this, then there will be public pressures. But it’s really tough for legislators to do federally and on a state level,” Mitchell said. “What I suspect you’ll start to see in the future is you’ll start to see ballot measures to try to rain this in. "  

2022 is not the historic year for candidate spending. In 2018, candidates spent over $56 million. 

Mitchell said Oklahoma could take up a ballot measure to change the transparency of campaign finance. However, it’s unlikely with high inflation and tax cuts taking priority in the next legislative session.